RISING: Hamlet

It’s funny. It’s moving. It’s tragi-comic theatre that stays true while toppling the throne to get somewhere new. Eight performers with down syndrome joyously deconstruct Hamlet in this adaptation from Peruvian theatre company Teatro La Plaza. They share their frustrations. They reveal their desires. They deliver the big soliloquy all at once, in rap form.

It’s a dazzling mash-up that melds film with live performance and turns the age-old question of Hamlet’s madness back in on itself. The actors are each on the prince’s quest for self but they’re also together, as they face shared obstacles to their expressions of uniqueness. In the process, they dare to ask whether “to be or not to be,” is really the question. Or is it the yardstick of normality in a conformist, productivity-obsessed society that could really use a closer look?

In a world that often pushes many people aside, this Hamlet focuses on the importance of community rather than the story of one depressed Danish prince.